NEW ACROPOLIS
We are a school of Philosophy
We promote Culture
We practice Volunteering
SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY
Chicago/ USA
The Visionary Behind the School
Jorge Ángel Livraga Rizzi (1930–1991)
New Acropolis wasn't built by a committee. It was founded in 1957 by a young seeker of wisdom who believed that philosophy should be more than just an intellectual game. He proposed a bold idea: a school where people didn't just study the great books, but lived them.
Reviving the Classical Tradition
In the 1950s, Jorge Ángel Livraga noticed a problem: education was becoming purely technical. We were learning how to build machines, but forgetting how to build character.
He looked back to history for a solution. He was inspired by the Classical Schools of the Past:
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The Academy of Plato
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The Lyceum of Aristotle
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The Library of Alexandria
These weren't just places to memorize facts. They were communities where people gathered to search for wisdom together. Livraga founded New Acropolis to bring that approach to philosophy as a way of life back to the 20th (and now 21st) century.
"We Can All Do Something"
Livraga was a critic of "armchair philosophy." He famously said that we can all do something to make the world better.
He championed Volunteering as the ultimate philosophical exercise. He believed that confusion and passivity are cured by action. This commitment to service is why every New Acropolis school today—from Mumbai to Chicago—is involved in local ecological and social relief projects.
A Life of Study
Born in Buenos Aires to an Italian family, Livraga was a voracious learner.
Education: He held degrees in History of Art and Philosophy from the University of Buenos Aires.
Comparative Studies: He spent years studying the medicine, science, and philosophy of Ancient India, seeking the common threads between Eastern and Western thought.
The Launch: In 1957, at the age of 27, he founded the first center in what would become the International Organization New Acropolis (OINA).
He spent the rest of his life traveling, teaching, and writing, eventually establishing centers in Europe, Asia, and the Americas.
In His Own Words
Listen to this interview of Jorge Ángel Livraga Rizzi discussing the state of affairs and how we can improve it.
(Note: Video is in Spanish with English Subtitles)
Books
Jorge Ángel Livraga Rizzi
This is the exciting story of a young chemist, Pablo Simón, a member of a Hermetic Lodge of Catholics who, in the midst of the terrors of the Inquisition, are working in obscurity to preserve the wisdom of the ages and to live out their Master’s message of love.
Jorge Ángel Livraga Rizzi
Nearly 12,000 years ago, so Plato and other traditions say, a single island was all that remained of the once vast continent of Atlantis. Although few modern historians believe that any forms of civilization existed in such far-off times, universal traditions speak of ‘floods’ which destroyed large areas of land inhabited by people as technologically developed as ourselves and, in some cases, more endowed with wisdom.
Jorge Ángel Livraga Rizzi
Written under the surprising form of a dog transformed into a man, who travels the world, visiting different countries, this work is the author’s way of expressing his views on some of the world’s sociopolitical systems, exposing their irrationality and the duplicity of human beings, while paradoxically continuing to love them.
